Hadley.

We were driving in the car. I turned down the radio & our conversation went something like this,

“Hadley-guess what? Mommy is going to take some pictures of someone very special today. Can you guess who it is?”
“Grandpa?”
“Nope.”
“Grandma?”
“Nope. It’s someone even more special than Grandma & Grandpa.”
“Brody? Thad? Margaret?”
“Nope.”
In a quiet voice, she said, “Me?”
As I told her yes, she shrieked & said, “I’m going to be SO EXCITING!!!!!!”

Hadley is starting preschool in a couple of days & I thought that it would be a fun reason to get out with her & take some photographs of the way she is NOW. The sweet, innocent, beautiful, creative girl who lives in a dream world filled with rainbows, princesses, cotton candy & unicorns. She owns the hugest chunk of my heart & since she has been in my life I’ve been changed. I can’t believe that God has given her to us-to raise, love & learn from. She is my little angel & I never knew that my capacity to love someone could be so huge until the day she was born.

My amazing mom always made dresses for me & my sisters growing up…I remember it being so special knowing that something had been made for me. So I made this little dress for Hadley’s photo shoot…we went to this gorgeous field of yellow flowers & I photographed her being herself. No posing, no directions. I don’t want to look back at my photographs of Hadley as a little girl & have them be posed photographs- I don’t want to remember her as a posed three year old. I want to look back at these photographs & know that they truly captured the rainbow, princess, cotton candy & unicorn world that Hadley lives in as a three year old.

So here they are-Hadley in all of her beautiful, radiating three-year old glory. And she was right- she WAS so exciting for these photographs! I am 100% positive that I will never photograph a more beautiful, captivating & amazing subject than my little sweetheart.

Love that look on the right! Cracks me up!

I can’t believe that she held a ladybug! When we came home I asked her what she held in her hand on our photo shoot & she said, “A hamster!” No visible difference between a hamster & a ladybug, I guess…

I’m pretty sure she was singing me a song right here…

And the song apparently had a dance that went along with it…I mean LOOK at those jazz hands!!!

The reward for being such a good girl…